What better way to spend a Sunday night than going to a gig where you’re only interested in a support band?

The opening act of the evening were Taking Dawn from the good ol’ US of A. For me they were an unknown quantity with an amusing Wikipedia entry which was either penned by the band themselves or some marketing exec trying to build up the hype and shift a few units. First impressions were of being trapped in a time warp from the late 80s or early 90s. Taking Dawn looked and sounded very much in the same vein as Skid Row, Guns ‘n Roses, and so on and so on…… which is not necessarily a bad thing: some modern bands can do the retro thing very well but then again others can’t. On this showing Taking Dawn edged more towards the latter, mainly due to the songs lacking something. They showed flashes of promise with a good riff or two before sadly falling back into genre-conforming mediocrity.

On the plus side, a rock ’n roll round of applause has to go to the drummer who played for the first few minutes wearing ray bans before chucking them high over his shoulder. Also, the front man did a good job of warming up the crowd with his raucous whooping and cheerleading between songs (if that sort of thing warms you up).

If I had to be critical I would’ve preferred to see a more quickfire delivery without the breaks between songs to ask if the crowd are ready to rock. In future please take it as read that the gentlemen and the ladies on all sides of the room are indeed ready to rock.

All in all, highly recommended and looking forward to the debut album coming out soon.